“Don’t be frightened, poor child, I don’t speak to hurt you, but to help. A considerable part of a life which should be all innocent gaiety of heart, is spent in gloom and miserable isolation. Some one fails to dot his i’s, and you resent it, not in words or manner, being too well brought up; but the light within you is darkened by a flight of black thoughts. ‘He (or she) shouldn’t have done it! It’s too bad! They don’t care how they hurt me! I should never have done so to her!’--and so on without end. Presently you find yourself swathed in a sort of invisible shroud; you cannot reach out a living hand to anybody, nor speak in living tones, nor meet your dear ones eye to eye with a living and loving glance. There you sit, like a dead man at the feast. By this time you have forgotten the first offence, and would give the world to get out of this death-in-life. You cry, you say your prayers, beg to be forgiven and restored, but your eyes are fixed upon yourself as a hateful person, and you are still wrapped in the cloud; until, suddenly (no doubt in answer to your prayers), a hug from little May, the first primrose of the year, a lark, filling the world with his gladness, and, presto! the key is turned, the enchanted princess liberated, glad as the lark, sweet as the flower, and gay as the bright child!” No answer: Dorothy’s arms laid on the table, and her face hidden upon them. At last, in a choked voice--“Please go on, doctor!” “All this may be helped,” a start: “may, within two or three months, be completely cured, become a horrid memory and nothing more!” A gasp, and streaming eyes raised, where the light of hope was struggling with fear and shame. “This is very trying for you, dear child! But I must get on with my task, and when I have done, it’s my belief you’ll forget the pain for joy. In the first place, you are not a very wicked girl because these ugly thoughts master you; I don’t say, mind you, that you will be without offence once you get the key between your fingers; but as it is, you need not sit in judgment on yourself any more.” Then Dr. Evans went on to make clear to Dorothy what he had already made clear to us of the interaction of thought and brain; how that Thought, Brain, & Co., were such close allies that nobody could tell which of the two did what: that they even ran a business of their own, independently of _Ego_, who was supposed to be the active head of the firm, and so on. Dorothy listened with absorbed intentness, as if every word were saving; but the light of hope died slowly out. “I think I see what you mean; these black thoughts come and rampage even against the desire of the _Ego_, I, myself: but, oh doctor, don’t you see, that’s all the worse for me?”